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Thursday, November 27, 2014

Herbert and Peter Fahey. Finishing in Hand Bookbinding: A
reprint in facsimile of the 1951 edition with a new Introduction by Alan
Isaac and Foreword by Maureen Duke. Oxford: Published by Alan Isaac Rare Books with Maureen Duke, 2014.

Those interested in the book arts, especially bookbinders, will be grateful for the reprinting of Finishing in Hand Bookbinding
this new edition, and each time at a different stage in my development
of finishing skills. I was fortunate that this book was available to me
for two years during my training at the North Bennet Street School in
Boston. Now, with an affordable edition available, the knowledge
contained within is much more accessible to those interested in
learning, those wanting to review, and those wanting to further broaden
their finishing practices. Regardless, these writings are useful for
almost all levels of finishing. I would love to see this reprinting be
the catalyst of a renewed conversation about hand-tooling, or, more than
that, a rallying call inspiring enthusiasm for the use of this
decorative technique.

The Faheys make an argument,
carried throughout the book, as to why hand tooling is best in
finishing. Unlike flat stamping, usually by machine, or even foil
tooling, hand tooling using gold leaf is the most reflective and lively
type of decoration; this is quintessential to everything that follows.
Hand tooling imparts “life”, as the Faheys say, “by various tools
reflecting the light and gold at slightly different angles and planes,”
as opposed to the monotonous effect given by plate-stamped designs
(Fahey 19). To those that see and handle them, hand-tooled bindings
have an inherent allure created not only by the sumptuousness of the
materials, but by the play of light reflecting off of the gold and the
wonder it provokes. Dr. Marianne Tidcombe in the introduction to Twenty-Five Gold-Tooled Bindings wrote,
“Gold-tooling is the most visible and striking of all the traditional
techniques, but it has been less in evidence with each passing
decade” (Tidcombe 5). Although written in 1997, it is hard to deny that
gold-tooled bindings are much less prevalent than they once were.

The
reprinted edition is a flat back case binding in full purple cloth,
sewn, with plain endpapers. “FINISHING” appears on the front cover in
gold foil stamping, a subtle tip of the hat to the Faheys’ belief that
the covers should have a conceptual correlation to the title page.
There is also an image of a hand holding a decorative finishing tool,
while the spine has the name of the name of the book and authors’ last
name foil-stamped in a sans-serif type-face. This facsimile of the 1951
edition is slightly smaller than the original printing. There is a new
frontispiece showing Herbert and Peter Fahey at work, two new color
plates and, best of all, a new Introduction and Foreword.

Alan
Isaac’s Introduction to the new edition acquaints one with a brief
background of the Faheys. For me, having only known about the Faheys
from the first edition of this book, Isaac really brings them to life:
their beginnings, their first forays into the world of bookbinding,
their development of skills, the many places they studied in and people
they studied with, and their legacy.

Maureen
Duke’s Foreword focuses on updating some of the aspects of the processes
the Faheys used. She says it beautifully: “Our knowledge concerning
the deterioration of bindings has been advanced by those studying book
conservation, and which has added considerately to the breadth of our
understanding and affected the way in which certain procedures are
done” (Duke xv). A few of the items she addresses are the advantages of
brass type, the use of toxic solvents in neutralizing the oil used to
hold the gold leaf in place on the leather, and the use of asbestos in
tool handles. She also notes the development of shellac-based glaire,
which is better suited to beginners than egg glaire.

The
Faheys’ manual of 1951 is, in part, a response to what they felt to be a
lack of more “modern” style finishing instruction the English manuals
of the time, which had sections on finishing. The manuals in use
focused mainly on period style tooling, and many were superficial in
their instructions. The Faheys’ manual not only is much clearer about
the process, but also incorporates their personal styles in design and
concept.

The act of finishing is meditative. Losing a
sense of self while tooling for days, weeks, or months, when all that
exists is the design, the gold, the book, and the tool, is such a
difficult thing to describe. This book articulates well many of the
“feelings” experienced with finishing that are not easily translatable
into words. The Faheys take their time in explaining the processes in
depth, and will sometimes come back to an idea another place in the book
to further expound upon it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t
mention their first instructor, Ignatz Wiemeler of Germany (1895 –
1952). Wiemeler helped in the development of their own philosophy, in
both appearance and concept. His influence on the Faheys’ style is
readily apparent, especially in the use of line. Wiemeler was in
harmony with the Arts and Crafts Movement, the belief in using the best
materials, sewing on raised cords when the paper suited that technique,
having the binding’s decoration harmonize with the content, and taking
the best of centuries-old techniques to improve the bookbinding of his
time. This excerpt from his article Bookbinding, Old and New gives a general feeling of his philosophy:

A
well-made book must be beautiful, in each stage of its development, if
the finished book should be convincing. The natural beauty of the whole
and of each single part cannot be premeditated and executed, but must be
borne in mind along with the work. It cannot be seen alone, but more
than that, it must be felt by touch of hand. It is the sum total of
exactitude and care for every detail, of the harmony of the size of the
book and the thickness of its covers with the width of its edges; in
short, it is the result of inspired work (Wiemeler 159).

Weimeler
had an ardent belief that the use of lettering was not simply for
identification of the book, but an integral part of the design. This is
something that the Faheys incorporated into their own philosophy, and
it is easily noted when looking at their bindings.

The Faheys explain what is meant by “finishing” in their Introduction: “The
term “finishing” is applied to all work done after the book has been
forwarded. The finisher must decide what lettering and decoration are
to be put on the book. This includes tooling of the patterns in blind
or with metal, onlay and inlay work, polishing and varnishing” (Fahey
7). They prefer simple designs rather than complex. Not necessarily
“less is more”, as is seen in some of their designs with large amounts
of tooling, but rather using finishing tools in a way that is not
exceedingly complex. They are practical about this, both from a design
standpoint and craftsman standpoint. As they say, "A finisher must make
things easy for himself" (Fahey 12).

The Faheys describe
at length the tools used in finishing. I can only speak from my own
standpoint, but some of the terminology when referring to the different
types of tools may be a product of the book being, as Maureen Duke says
it in the Foreword, “of its time” (Duke xv). One such possible example
would be the use of the term “straight line tool” (Fahey 40) when
referring to a line tool for tooling on a spine. The difficulty with
that term is that there is a distinction between straight line tools (or
pallets) used across the spine, what I would call a “flat-faced
pallet”, and straight line tools used on the boards, which have a slight
curve to it, to ensure even pressure throughout the impression. I
would suggest John Mitchell’s An Introduction to Gold Finishing, pages 77-91,as
a wonderful source explaining the different kinds of tools and their
usage. One other marvelous source on finishing tools is Tom Conroy’s Bookbinders’ Finishing Tool Makers 1780-1965, which,
in addition to the wealth of information on finishing tool makers, has
an in depth Introduction that identifies the different parts of
finishing tools and discusses how they were made.

The
Faheys’ finishing process is straightforward and explained clearly. In
addition to the order of operations, they write at length about the
“why” for each step. The basic procedure involves the following steps:
making up a template on strong, thin paper using tools and a stamp pad;
securing the template in place on the leather and tooling through it;
removing the template and tooling again; building up a blind impression
with several strikes of the tool until the impression has been tooled
with a heated tool and moisture in the leather (but surface-dry). The
leather is then given a vinegar wash, and tooled with a warm tool when
surface-dry; the impressions are penciled in with vinegar, then given a
first coat of glaire before the vinegar has completely dried, and a
second coat of glaire is applied after the first has dried. While the
glaire is drying, the leaf is made ready, cut to the size necessary for
the given tool; the tool is heated to the correct temperature, is given a
slight amount of oil with which the gold is picked up, and the
impression is tooled with the leaf. “In the finest bindings, gold is
put on several times to be sure it is solid and brilliant” (Fahey 51).
This order of operations can be applied to most gold/leaf tooling, with
the exception of water impervious leathers. Variants for different
kinds of leather, such as calf, are explained.

Although
their preference in transferring the leaf into the impression is to pick
it up on the tool, they also explain the process of all-over tooling:
glairing the entire area to be tooled, laying leaf onto the leather with
grease or oil on the leather to keep the gold in place, tooling through
the gold, and removing the excess gold with a solvent. There should be
no extraneous movements, as these lead to mistakes. Every time the
tool is picked up, it should with intention and with purpose. “Tooling
should be done firmly and decisively—any additional pressure and
prolonged dwelling beyond the first impression does not help and may
harm through too much depth, twisting of tool, and breaking the gold”
(Fahey 51).

The gilding size the Faheys use is
egg glaire. In 1951 Fixor was already being used in France, and
shellac-based glaire was being developed and used in England during and
after the Second World War, when eggs were a limited resource. But the
Faheys are writing about their particular practice. Nowadays there are
proponents of each: shellac-glaire for its ease of use and convenience
(especially helpful on water-impervious leathers, as well as in
developing skills since it eliminates the complications of “open-time”
with egg glaire), egg glaire for its brilliance and ease in cleaning
impressions. In addition to blind tooling and tooling with leaf,
they also have a chapter on inlay and onlay, and give several different
onlaying practices other than their preferred method. Tooling on
different materials is also discussed, including parchment and cloth.

Five black-and-white plates of Fahey bindings are included at the back
of the book along with a small description of each; these were present
in the original printing. The unifying concept between book and binding
is explained, revealing more of their philosophy. Their use of line is
prevalent in each plate, as is their use of the book’s title, but both
in different ways. The two new color plates in the front do not have
descriptions from the authors, but are higher quality printings and
showcase the beauty of gold on leather, and the effect of Fahey
bindings.

The Faheys wrote this book to help
enrich the binding community by contributing their particular finishing
processes. No doubt, other finishing manuals and books describe more
modern designs from the time period. One is Jules Fache’s La Dorure et
la Decoration des Reliures, published in 1954. He was an absolute
master, and though many might not know his name, almost everyone knows
one of the designers for whom he worked: Paul Bonet. And there are
others, such as Emilio Brugalla’s Tres Ensayos sobre el Arte de la
Encuadernacion (1945), that talk about tooling in a more modern manner,
in addition to traditional designs. The problem with these other texts
for us is often the language barrier.

The use of
hand-tooling in bookbinding captures and illustrates the magnificence of
the materials. The Faheys continued to explore such tooling, which
became an expression of their own artistry. They, here, have written a
manual based on their extensive knowledge attained through fastidious
work and discipline. When practiced, it provides an excellent framework
for one’s finishing methods. It also is a great fount from which from
which one can apply certain aspects of the Faheys’ process. This book
stands as a treatise of utilizing hand-tooling to make beautiful and
creative bindings.

Mitchell, John. An Introduction to Gold Finishing. Edited and Designed by Nolan Watts. Worthing, Sussex, UK: The Standing Press 1995 and 2005.

Tidcombe, Marianne. Introduction to Twenty-Five Gold-Tooled Bindings, An International Tribute to Bernard Middleton’s Recollections. Edited
by Marianne Tidcombe, with an essay on “The Use of Gold in Bookbinding”
by Bernard C. Middleton. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press 1997.

Wiemeler,
Ignatz. “Bookbinding, Old and New”. Translated from the German by
Peter Mueller-Munk and Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt. The Dolphin, A Journal of
the Making of Books. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1933: 146-160.

Samuel Feinstein trained formally at the North Bennet Street School program
where he studied under Jeff Altepeter and Martha Kearsley. Since
graduating in 2012 he has been in private practice creating fine
bindings, luxury clamshell boxes, new bindings in period style, and gold
finishing for other binders. He is an avid proponent of
tooled-bookbindings, and he teaches occasionally. His work can be seen
on his website www.SamuelFeinsteinBookbinding.com or in more detail on his blog: www.SamuelFeinstein.wordpress.com

The recent exhibit InsideOUT, organized by Designer Bookbinders, showcases
the work of 59 binders from the UK and the US each of whom completed a design
binding of a text published by one of nine fine presses. The culminating works
are an instance of eating one's cake and having it, too. These are
one-of-a-kind pieces of art that illustrate the collaborative nature of the
field of book art, with years of mastering one's craft on display on both the
inside and outside of the book. Designer Bookbinders does a great service to
the field as a whole in creating exhibitions like this one.

The 80pp full color catalog for the exhibition is expertly designed and
organized, with images of the fine press texts acting as a subtle backdrop to
the images of each binding. The bindings are artfully arranged on the white of
the page, without a visual bounding box, only a slight shadow at the very
bottom of the cover to indicate its three dimensionality. Detail shots of the
books highlight a particular structural or design element. Bindings are grouped
according to press, which allows for bindings of the same title to be shown
alongside one another, giving the viewer insight into the quality of the
writing and illustrations contained within, as well as the creative process of the
binders.

A successful design binding should interpret the text to be bound in an
original and visually compelling way while showing the style and technical
skill of the individual binder. There are too many examples of successful
design bindings in this catalog and exhibit to call out each one individually.
However, there are a few here that directly illustrate the project of the
exhibition and which display other characteristics that are of interest to me
personally.

The three bindings for the Arion Press Journey Round My Room by Xavier
de Maistre, are compelling in their similarity of interpretation, which speaks
to the strength of the writing in conveying its message and to the publisher in
communicating this message in its choice of layout, typeface, color, and
accompanying imagery. The text, originally written in 1790, is an
autobiographical account of a young officer imprisoned in a single room and who
takes to describing in specific detail the voyages he takes in this confined
space, both in body and mind. In the Arion edition, the text is accompanied by
hazy photographs of objects in a room by architect Ross Anderson.

Journey Round My Room, binding by Annette
Friedrich

All three binders of this text—Annette Friedrich, Jo Bird, and Haein Song—chose
to represent the work with abstract imagery. The colors on all three design
bindings are very similar, in the rose and tan color range, communicating to
the viewer that these hues must be referenced in the writing itself. Annette
Friedrich's book is bound in a light tan goatskin with tooling of precise and
subtle markings in a variety of pigmented and metallic foils. The scale, color,
and placement of the delicate dots, dashes, crosses, and arcs seem both
improvisational and studied, representing the physical and mental wanderings of
the main character. The outer bounds of the book cover smartly act as the
visual boundaries of the room. Haein Song's binding is comparable in design
using tan goatskin and similar markings, yet instead of tooling, these markings
are thinly pared, irregularly shaped, feathered pieces of off-white leather
onlay. They read as ghosts of footsteps in a room, yet are described as being
reflections of light. The subtle shift in scale from foreground to background
of these pieces creates a sense of depth, which is pleasing to the eye. Jo
Bird's binding is covered with a series of small, carbon-tooled, irregular
spirals arranged in a grid to illustrate the confined yet varying path of the
main character about the room. In all three of these bindings, the bookbinder
truly responded to the text and created a work that adds to the perception of a
reader/viewer.

Steel Horizon, binding by Stephen Conway

Stephen Conway created two bindings for the texts of different presses. These
bindings both used simple yet bold design elements and the inherent beauty of
the covering materials to great effect. The design for Steel Horizon, a
collection of poems by Jonathan Wonham about his time on a North Sea oil rig,
published by Incline Press, is a checkerboard grid of panels alternating in
dark grey goatskin and figured vellum. While a viewer may expect to see a
binding with a long horizontal line as a design element for any text that
contains the word “horizon”, Conway goes one step further, evoking an ominous
feeling appropriate to the poems contained within. The dark grey goatskin
panels are arranged to create a sense of enclosure as both horizontal and
vertical lines visually lock into one another creating a cross, cross-hair,
compass, bars, a window. He reinforces this effect by tooling horizontal and
vertical lines in silver onto the goatskin panels. The mottled off-white vellum
panels read like a leaden sky as they alternate with the dark grey. The corners
of the panels are riveted into place, an industrial element that creates
another subtle visual cue giving the reader/viewer a very real sense of place.

His other binding for Britten's Aldeburgh, published by Whittington
Press, uses the same design elements of goat skin panels and figured vellum.
The figured vellum is the off-white backdrop to a series of horizontal
rectangular black goatskin onlays, stretching across the spine from back to
front cover. The horizontal panels are tooled with gold horizontal lines.
Conway uses visual repetition to great effect as the black and gold lines
repeat down the cover from head to tail, calling to mind waves or a somewhat
bleak landscape that is seen again and again. These lines also reference
musical notation and the work of the composer Benjamin Britten, on whose walks
around the Suffolk coastline this book is based. The natural isolated areas of
darker pigmentation on the figured vellum are used expertly on the front and
back covers at the very edges of the boards, again evoking the sky and
gathering clouds. Conway has a very strong individual style and his technical
skill is impeccable, but he does not allow his visual sensibility to overshadow
the text—he honors it with his interpretation.

Bicycle Diaries, binding by Hannah Brown

Two exuberant bindings by Hannah Brown and Nicky Oliver show a less formal
approach to design binding, yet are both successful. Embroidery on bindings
dates back many centuries and lends a warmth and intimacy to books that is
evident in Brown's work. In her design binding for the Bicycle Diaries,
published by Midnight Paper Sales, the viewer is invited to look down on a city
sidewalk scene of pigeons and a bicycle. This pictorial rendering has a three
dimensional, hyperreal quality that completely transforms the materials she is
working with. The three dimensionality is enhanced by a wash of acrylic paint
used underneath the embroidery. The text is about the author Richard Goodman's
journey through New York City on the day of September 11th.

Lost and Found, binding by Nicky Oliver

Hannah Brown's interpretation of the
text places us there with the author, unable to look at the most common city
scene in quite the same way ever again. Nicky Oliver uses a painterly,
unconventional approach to design binding. Her binding for Lost and Found
published by Whittington Press is an expressive burst of color, line, and
motion. She has a distinct style that shows layers and layers of work with
leather dyes and decorative tooling. Her dynamic use of the entire cover as her
canvas creates a visually compelling composition that draws the viewer in.

Circus, binding by Donald Glaister

Another binding of note is Donald Glaister's interpretation of Circus by
Shanty Bay Press. His masterful technique combines a number of traditional and
non-traditional materials to illustrate the larger-than-life experience of the
circus. The tent on the cover appears to bust open and overtake the binding,
partially covering the exquisitely tooled title on the spine of the book. His
work shows humor, skill, and an artful engagement with the conventions of
design binding.

All of the other bindings not mentioned here are worthy of their own
examination and I only wish time and space allowed for me to write about them.
I am honored to take this tour through the exhibition, courtesy of the
fantastic accompanying catalog. I highly recommend this catalog to anyone
interested in design binding.

The Exhibition was on display in the Layton Room Gallery at St Bride Foundation, London, 15 May to 22 August 2014.

Friday, August 29, 2014

The Bonefolder ceased publication as an e-journal over a year-and-a-half ago, but is still seeing heavy regular access via a wide variety of websites or online databases. It's great to see the level of use steady. Since 2004, 554,133 page views, 385,738 unique page views for all issues combined.

The past issues are made available as downloadable PDFs from Syracuse University Libraries' digital collections server. Other journals hosted from there are also on that server as well as in our institutional repository (IR), SURFACE. While fully accessible as downloadable PDFs, that format is not interactive, i.e. does not facilitate discussion around topics in the issue via social media, embedding in other websites, nor does it have lots of "pretty" bells and whistles like page-turning...

The use of digital collections, multimedia, interactivity is a big topic in academic library circles and some of us realize that there is a lot more we can do to facilitate use (and reuse) materials of our collections. Here some really interesting articles on the issues and challenges:

There are a lot more of those kinds of articles in the library/academic literature.

In order to experiment and gather feedback from users, a group of us at Syracuse University are going to be trying out different platforms to see how they work and how we might integrate them into other tools and workflows we are using.

Here our first, ISSUU, all bundled together in a "stack" that hopefully looks better than most of our desks...

And here, embedded, our last and perhaps best issue...

So, what do you think of this mode of publication? What are advantages, disadvantages, ...? How you you like being able to share directly to social media? Use the comment form below and let us know what you think.

Conclusions“Despite the ever-increasing popularity of new ways of reading, the study participants read in a fairly traditional way. Most of them preferred to use print for long-form and academic reading, at least partly because they felt more comfortable annotating docu¬ments in a print environment. They read electronically a great deal, but this reading consisted primarily of brief, nonacademic materials.

Their dislike of electronic textbooks was especially striking… The University of Minnesota provides an Open Textbook Catalog, which identifies open textbooks and allows reviews; notably, the designers of the catalog offer inexpensive print on demand options for each work, acknowledging that many students dislike online textbooks. In the midst of this attention to the digital, it is worth noting that students in the pres¬ent study were less comfortable using textbooks in an electronic format, and some of them said they usually print out the sections they use, thus negating any savings.”

I love pop-up books. I collect pop-up books: my family still gives them to me as birthday and holiday presents, even though I am a grown adult. I work in a library with a substantial collection of pop-up books, and I am quick to tell anyone who will listen that I have gotten to hold and play with an original Meggendorfer pop-up book. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when I was asked to review Helen Hiebert’s new book, Playing With Pop-Ups. A passing observer would probably remark that I was “elated” at the prospect of doing such a review.

Teaching the art of the pop-up is difficult, just like any how-to book about bookbinding, because it challenges the author to describe 3-D concepts in a 2-D format. Many pop-up structures function with a front-end and a back-end structure, just like a website: the viewer almost always only sees the front-end result, and the back-end support is not very apparent except to the experienced reader. I’ve looked at many a damaged pop-up book and wondered, “How on EARTH did they make this?” while trying to fit two parts of a broken whole back together unsuccessfully. Helen Hiebert’s approach to this essential problem with teaching these complicated structures is a combination of providing templates to practice on, and a wealth of concisely illustrated instructions.

The book begins with a very brief history of pop-ups, a commentary on the state of pop-up arts today, an interesting glimpse into the production of a commercially published pop-up book, and overview of the basic pop-up terminology, tools, and tricks of the trade. I particularly enjoyed the description of the production line process of a commercially published pop-up, myself. Each different kind of fold and cut used in the following project instructions was clearly illustrated with a nice photograph and a well-written description. Hiebert also provides a list of recommended tools, as well as alternatives for some tools – like using a paperclip or the back of a knife instead of a bone folder to fold or score paper. This is a nice touch that makes the craft more accessible and promotes the kind of “creative reuse” so endemic to bookbinding.

However, in my opinion, the real genius of Hiebert’s book is the templates she provides for each project. These are pages in the book that are meant to be photocopied onto the paper of your choice, and then you just follow the dotted, dashed, and solid lines with bonefolder, knife, and glue, to create the pop-up. The first three projects are termed “Pop-up Warm-ups,” and are meant to familiarize the budding paper-engineer with the basic tenants of pop-up structure. The projects that follow increase in difficulty, but provide a nicely diverse range of different types of structures and themes. These include a pop-up city skyline, a Valentine’s card, paper earrings, a tunnel book, and a volvelle with six slots. Our conservation lab intern and I spent a happy afternoon completing one of the projects using the templates. It’s really a no-brainer way of teaching the structure, as it removes the risk of beginner mistakes such as mis-measuring; each part of the template is clearly labeled with different lines for cuts, mountain folds, or valley folds. The other wonderful thing about the templates is that many of them are blank or simple enough that you could easily customize them or slightly modify them to create an original work. In my opinion, the templates get the point across very effectively and leave very little confusion about how they should work.

The final section of the book is devoted to a beautifully photographed gallery of current-day pop-up book artists and their work. Seeing these artist’s amazing work serves as inspiration to think creatively about your own future projects, as well as a visual bibliography of pop-up books to seek out in your local library or bookstore. As a collector of pop-up books, it was reaffirming to see books from my own library represented and to feel that kindred spark of passion for the art. In other words, “We like the same pop-up books!” Hiebert’s book is a solid addition to the library of any beginner or intermediate paper engineer, and is a welcome complement to other pop-up book manuals, such as Carol Barton’s The Pocket Paper Engineer series or David Carter and James Diaz’s The Elements of Pop-Up.

Suzy Morgan
is a 2009 graduate of the School of Information
at the University of Texas at Austin, where she received a
certificate
in advanced studies in conservation from the Kilgarlin Center
for the
Preservation of the Historic Record. She has had internships at
Northwestern
University, Syracuse University, the Cincinnati Art Museum and
the Ringling
Museum of Art. After working as the web developer at the
Newberry Library and working in private practice as a book
conservator and
preservation consultant, she is now Preservation Specialist for the Arizona State Library.She is also the creator of The
Multi-lingual Bookbinding/Conservation Dictionary Project: The goal
of this project is to combine, in one place, all the known bookbinding
and book conservation terminology, in as many languages as possible.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

With this Bind-O-Rama we celebrate the 20th anniversary of this list (we went online June 23rd 1994) and thank everyone for being a part of the Book_Arts-L community, whether active poster or lurker. Never thought it would go on this long (the crazy part).

What started as an antidote to my professional isolation in the wilderness that was Central New York quickly grew into the most active book arts community, a placed where seasoned professionals, students, and anyone in-between talked shop and shared generously via their questions and answers. Back in 1998 I was invited to speak about the growth of the "Internet" as a tool for book artists at the 25th anniversary of the Silver Buckle Press in Madison, Wisconsin by Tracy Honn... That was 4 years into this adventure, and the talk is online at <http://www.philobiblon.com/HotType.shtml>. While the growth in numbers of those online has exploded, much else remains the same. Some of my "fondest" memories include teaching folks how to use email... Looking at the list interface (subscription, posting, ...) it seems very dated, Web 0.5ish... Still, it works and is as active as ever, with many who joined in the first days and weeks still active today.

Listserv archives continue to be accessible and capture those 20 years while serving as a resource for all. Some discussions, like "what is a book" remain popular. Google searches and statistics point to uses in school papers of all levels including theses and dissertations...

The works shown below were submitted by subscribers and represent their best effort from the past 3 or so years. Given the demographics of the list I expected more artist's books than traditional bindings, but a very nice range of work non-the-less.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

While The Bonefolder is no more, Open Access is as important as ever. For those unfamiliar the article below explains the key concepts. Remember as authors we need to informed about AND CAN exert our rights so that our research and creative output reaches the widest audience possible...

The conservation field has articulated the importance of publishing
our research to disseminate information and further the aims of
conservation. Article X of AIC’s Code of Ethics states that conservators
should “contribute to the evolution and growth of the profession, a
field of study that encompasses the liberal arts and the natural
sciences” in part by “sharing of information and experience with
colleagues, adding to the profession’s written body of knowledge.” Our
Guidelines for Practice state “the conservation professional should
recognize the importance of published information that has undergone
formal peer review,” because, as Commentary 2.1 indicates, “publication
in peer-reviewed literature lends credence to the disclosed
information.” Furthermore, our Guidelines for Practice state that the
“open exchange of ideas and information is a fundamental characteristic
of a profession.” In publishing our research, we can increase awareness
of conservation and confidence in our research methods among allied
professionals as well as the general public.

However, current publication models limit the free flow of
information by making access expensive and re-use complicated. An
alternative to traditional subscription publishing is the Open Access
movement, which strives to remove barriers to access and re-use of
published information by reducing the costs of publishing and rethinking
permissions issues.

To synthesize growing interest in professional publishing and spark discussion, this article proposes to:

Define Open Access and how it differs from traditional publishing in
its approach to access and re-use of peer-reviewed publications

Discuss the implications of Open Access for the conservation field
including interdisciplinary research, outreach opportunities, preferred
medium for consuming professional publications, perspective of the Journal of the American Institute for Conservation (JAIC), and author impact.

Monica Langwe’s most recent book is a more extensive follow-up to her previous work on limp bindings from the City Archives in Tallinn, Estonia (see Langwe, 2008). In Limp Bindings from the Vatican Library, the author cleaves to the same format, providing descriptions and diagrams for 11 historical bindings and includes a gallery of 11 contemporary works from international book artists. The Vatican Library is not the easiest institution to access, and from the author’s long list of acknowledgements, it is clear that a great deal of planning and coordination was required to make this project happen. With equal parts history, manual, and exhibit catalog, this volume is a delight to read and would be a welcome addition to any binder or bibliophile’s collection.

The book itself is beautifully designed, with clearly printed graphics and a typeface inspired by early Italian printing. The textblock is composed of 5 folded sections, sewn through the fold, with adhesive applied to the spine. The cover is a simple paper wrapper folded over the outermost leaves like a dust jacket. The construction is sturdy enough for extensive use and easily taken apart – a fact that binders wishing to respond to the text by rebinding the book itself will appreciate. The wrapper is printed on both sides and features labeled maps of Vatican City and the library. I found the maps most helpful, as Langwe includes a great deal of description of how the physical spaces that the library inhabits have changed over the years.

The text begins with a brief history of the collection. As one of the oldest libraries in the world, the Vatican’s collection has been through a great many changes; however, Langwe does not overwhelm the reader with dry facts. Organized by century, the history charts the evolution of the institution from the dispersal of the collection with the Avignon Papacy in the fourteenth century, all the way to the adoption of an electronic card catalog and building renovations in the twenty-first. Over the years, the library has grown by leaps and bounds through the acquisition of collections of note. Langwe provides a lists of the high spots, such as the Palatine Library of Heidelberg and the collection of the Barberini Family. Other institutions within the Holy See have been spun off of the library’s collection over time, including the Vatican Secret Archive, the Numismatic Cabinet, and the Museo Sacro.

Langwe follows with a discussion of the maturation of the conservation department within the institution. I was surprised to learn that a bookbinder has been employed by the library since 1475 and documentation of book repairs performed goes back to the late sixteenth century. The author describes several large rebinding projects that were undertaken in the past. One must assume that a number of original parchment bindings were lost in these efforts, however, we are lucky that the objects depicted in this volume survive. Today the conservation department is staffed by professionally trained conservators, who recognize the challenges of preserving the artefactual value of an object while maintaining its functionality.

Turning to the historical bindings, Langwe notes that they were meant to be functional and sometimes temporary; a means of organizing information, often with the ability to add or remove parts easily. With the popularity of limp parchment structures in modern book art and conservation practice (see for example Clarkson, 2005; Espinoza, 1993; Lindsay, 1991), it is easy for the contemporary binder to fall into the habit of thinking of limp parchment bindings in only one or two forms: text-to-cover attachment through primary sewing, such as a “long-stitch” structure, or sewn on primary sewing supports that are laced through the cover. Langwe reminds us, however, that these bindings have “infinite possible variations of materials, methods, and structure” (p. 27) and indicates that the goal of her book is to inspire the modern binder with the simplicity of these techniques from antiquity.

Nine bindings in parchment and two in paper are depicted in photographs and described with diagrams and text. Each volume includes different methods of textblock construction and cover-to-text attachment. A three-quarter view photograph of the object is followed by the title and a brief description of the item’s composition and dimensions. Clear diagrams of the textblock and cover construction appear for each structure. For volumes with more complex sewing or ticketing, step-by-step instructions appear alongside diagrams with arrows to indicate sewing or lacing patterns. Although the language assumes that one has experience with the most basic elements of bookbinding, even the novice could use this book to construct accurate models of each structure.

Each of the historical objects is mirrored by a contemporary binding from a list of 11 well-known and talented artists. A photograph of the binding appears alongside the name of the binder, the title of the work, and the title of the historical object that it represents. A brief statement from the artist and a list of materials also appear. I very much enjoyed flipping back and forth between historical and contemporary objects to see which aspects of each binding the artist chose to capture.

Szirmai (2000) in his seminal work, The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding, acknowledges that “studies of binding structures in archives are very scarce” (p. 287). Langwe’s work is a welcome answer to that call. In recent years, libraries and archives have begun to devote significant resources to digitization of content, but all too often binding structure and composition are ignored. Langwe acknowledges the difficulty in identifying bindings with common structures; however, documentation of bindings through photographs and diagrams, as presented in this book, can be an invaluable resource for contemporary binders, artists, and scholars. I applaud her work and look forward to future publications of this quality.

Henry Hébert is the Rare Book Conservator at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds a MLIS from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill and a certificate in hand bookbinding from the North Bennet
Street School in Boston, MA. Henry is currently serving as the Communications
Chair for the Guild of Book Workers. More information and images of his work
can be found at http://www.henryhebert.net.